S3:E8 Interviews with Dads Curt Storring with Dad.Work talks Anger Management

This is 100% Dad podcast, interviews with dads. We've got Kurt with Dad.Work, and, uh, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah, man, glad to be here. Thank you for the invite. And, uh, I am a father of 3. I've got 3 boys, 9, 7, and 2. I have been married for 10 years next month, and, uh, things are great, man. We have spent the last 10 years as entrepreneurs running online SEO affiliate-based websites. And that's allowed us to do everything from, uh, well, basically set our own schedules, but also travel to Thailand, Eastern Europe, and live there for 2 years. And, uh, only recently have I decided to sell, uh, quite a large portion of that and focus exclusively on DadWork, which is basically a way to help dads who are struggling like I was, because man, It was terrible. I was such a bad dad for the first few years. And I realized that a lot of it was because I was struggling and suffering internally with unhealed wounds, with things from my childhood that I didn't even know were there. And I started doing the work to become a better dad and a better husband. And it worked. You know, I went from angry, miserable, upset, mean, scary all the time, hating myself to the opposite of that. And so now with this Dad Work project, we're sort of getting into how we can help other dads do that and go through the similar process that I went through because it changed my life. Um, and it's, it's about going deep, man. It's about talking about stuff that is not as comfortable for men to talk about, but at the same time making sure we're backed up not just by the emotional side of things, by actually getting stuff done and being, um, you know, masculine. I think you talked about— you had a guy on recently talking about that. Uh, it's a balance. How do you access the emotional deep parts of yourself while also showing up as a strong masculine father? So that's kind of the work we do, and that's where I've spent a lot of my time these days.

Uh, do you have roots tied to Eastern Europe?

Uh, no, actually. We just, uh— my wife has some sort of almost romantic view, which is the strangest thing, because like, who would want to go to, you know, Moscow in the winter other than her? But she really likes that. So we moved to Eastern Europe. We traveled around there a little bit in the winter, which was terrible. It was cold, it was depressing, but it was an interesting experience, that's for sure, especially with the kids.

Yeah, no kidding. How long were you over there?

So we think we spent 3, 4 months in Eastern Europe, but we spent most of the 2 years of travel in Thailand with a brief stop back here outside of Vancouver. But most of it was in Thailand.

Okay, so you— are you a Canadian citizen traveling, or are you a citizen somewhere else? Okay.

Yep, Canadian.

So you're born— born, I'm assuming, raised in Canada?

Yeah, correct.

Okay, so why Thailand?

Totally random, man. YouTube. The only reason we picked Thailand was we saw this video. I was like, oh, it's actually pretty nice there. And we had got to this point where I was probably 3 years into building the business, and I was like, I would love to travel one day And then we looked at each other, we're like, why don't we just travel now? I can work whenever I want, I can work wherever I want. What would it look like to start traveling now? And so we just searched, like, I can't even remember, digital nomad or something, whatever they call them, people who work overseas and just hang out and live in these other places. And one of the first videos that came up was this couple who ended up having a child who lived in Thailand. And I always thought, like, it was going to be Europe or, you know, Wait a second, back, back that thought up.

How do you end up having— how do you end up having a child that lived in Thailand?

Um, how do I end up having a child that lived in Thailand?

That's what you just said. There was a couple and they ended up having a child that lived in Thailand.

Yeah, they had their child while they were overseas, so they moved there years ago.

Okay.

And they lived there for like 5 years and then they had a kid. And so we're like, oh Apparently you can do this with kids.

I thought you're gonna go like, I thought they like adopted a kid but he had to stay in Thailand or something like that. I haven't heard of this.

Thankfully not. There's weird stuff going on in Thailand, but not that, not that as far as I know.

That's right. So there's another tech guy I know, uh, like an acquaintance. We probably haven't talked since high school, but like we still are on each other's social pages. And he does— I'm a traditional business guy, um, I never really got into the tech stuff. Um, all those 100% Dad online is all a whole new world to me. Like just this, what, this past month, uh, someone was telling me about like the whole ClickFunnels and online courses and all that stuff. I've just, I've never dived into, and, uh, it's just an interesting world. And so I think what he does is some sort of arbitrage, maybe he does SEO, I don't know. I think he did like Amazon, buy stuff, resell through there. Anyway, so, so he was doing fine, could work whenever, wherever, it was basically on the laptop. And, but he chose to live in Thailand too. Like, that's where he spent a majority. Like, he says he traveled a lot, but most of it was in Thailand. I just— it was funny that two tech guys I've talked to—

yeah, it's a popular—

or online guys.

There's a lot of people who live there, um, who are Canadian-American. Met a bunch of Europeans there. But it's, um, it's cool. There's a lot of different— like, the, the country's so different from south to north. We lived up in the mountains, uh, there's like beaches down in the south, there's Bangkok. It's insane. And honestly, man, the experience for the kids, what I wanted out of it was one, adventure. Like, I just want to do this because it's amazing. But two, I wanted my kids to have like a lived experience of the fact that you don't just have to like go to school, get a job, do a 9 to 5, and just like stay in your own little area the whole time. And I get like, you guys probably get that too, traveling so much on the road, right? Like they're going to learn like, oh, I don't have to just like follow the narrative. I can just do whatever I want if it feels good. And if it makes me, if it has meaning to me. And so that's one of the things that I love most about it is like our kids just like— they went— my oldest went to school there for a year. Like, that was amazing. He's going to have that experience forever and knowing that like he doesn't just have to follow all the rules all the time.

Yeah, the perspective gained by seeing more stuff and having a wider lens is, uh, it really changes how you interact on a day-to-day, especially with other people, because you're more appreciative of different ways of thinking because you kind of understand it better. Um, and it isn't, hey, this person doesn't think my way, they're an idiot. It is, oh, I get that, because, you know, we've come across cultures that live that way, and just, you know, it's not necessarily wrong, it's just different. So what was that catalyst? It sounded like you said you were in a dark place. It was 5 minutes ago, but for some reason I'm having trouble remembering it. You were angry, you were, I don't know, bitter, you were struggling with stuff with life, and maybe that's just how you were living, I assume, as a married man with kids. So what was that catalyst, that eye-opening thing that made you realize, hey, I don't want to live this way anymore, there's another way? Was that someone telling you that? Was that just some sort of experience you had? You just wake up one day and say, I need to be different.

Yeah, so the first thing was I knew that I didn't want to be living that way, but I had no idea there was another way to live. So I was constantly like, oh man, this sucks, I need to get better, but What does that even look like? And so I would make the same mistakes over and over and over. It was about needing control. It was about needing to have things perfect. It was about expressing anything that went against that as anger and rage and frustration. And the thing that finally showed me that there was another way, it was about 2 and a half years into being a father. I had 2 kids at that point, and I heard this guy. I was following this business. I don't know, not a guru, but some guy who runs a website that talks about online business, and he's like, oh, I started meditating and it's really good for my productivity. And I was like, oh sweet, I want to be more productive, I want to make more money, and so I'm going to meditate. Never heard of this before, sounds a bit weird, but I'll just try it. So I tried it for 10 days. I used the Headspace app, and 10 days in, I remember coming out of my office and my son comes around the corner and he does something. I can't remember if he like hits me or screams or something like that, but normally I would have got real angry, like, you know, off the rails, screaming at him, blaming him, shaming him, terrible things. And in this moment, I just like took a breath and I was able to respond instead of react. I found that space that they talk about between the stimulus and the response, and I was like, oh, I didn't even know you could choose how you react. And so that was like my light bulb moment, and from that point I just went all in on like, what else? Like, what else is inside my mind? What other tools are there? And that was like, that was the first thing that convinced me there was even another way.

Interesting. And how— so you have a 2-year-old. How long are you married at this point?

Uh, 3 years. So we got married and we got— my wife got pregnant like 2 or 3 months in, which is planned and, and wonderful. Yeah.

How well did you guys know each other before you got married? Or how long, I guess?

Uh, we met April 2010, got married in March 2012. Hopefully we were together for most of that.

Yeah. Okay, so is this— is that something like she had brought up? Like she had recognized that like you get angry, or was she kind of like in the same mindset, or is this something she tolerated because she loved you and that's just who you are and just let him be him?

The way that I say it, and I've heard a couple people use this phrase, is trauma bonded. So like my pain and her pain were like, oh, let's be friends. And it's a really weird sort of thing me, but that's just how it worked. We were very fiery. There was a lot of like competition and conflict, and that's just how the relationship started. And so as I got angry, she, one, didn't have the resources herself to be like, yo, that's not cool. And so she put up with it and really supported me as best she could. And on the other hand, it was just like, I guess this is what relationships are like, because we didn't have super great, relationships growing up to look at for, um, like to model, right, in our parents. So I think it was just a thing where she put up with it as best she could and didn't really even know that it wasn't okay to put up with that because that's what life is.

That's what life was. Oh, I get that, man. So how supportive or non-supportive was she when you kind of started saying, hey, I'm doing this meditating thing? I thought I was going to make a lot of money with it and it was going to help me be more productive. And like, I think I want to start maybe taking more of this approach and these kind of things because, man, I just— it's kind of opened up my world to a whole new way of living.

Yeah. So there's two answers here. One is like quite supportive because she's like, oh, anything, anything to help you, right? Like anything to get you to stop yelling. And then the other side, much further down the road, because like I've done— I did meditating, journaling, breathwork, all sorts of like so-called healing things or growth things, but sometimes it was like a test. Like, okay, you say you're going to do this, you say you're better, but like, I don't believe you because you've broken my trust so many times. So there was a mix of like incredible support and prove it, right? So I had to deal with that, which was difficult because I'm like, oh no, I'm good. Like, look at— I'm doing all this work, can you just support me? And she's like, dude, you spent years yelling at me like, no, show me and prove that you're better. So that was— the responsibility was on me to make sure it was working.

Do you, do you have a track history of, um, getting excited and jumping on something and then not following through?

Um, no, I, I, I'm quite good at starting and finishing things. It was just that it was so long built up, right? Like, this was just who I was. So it was like, not that, not that she didn't think it could work, but just that like in the day-to-day interactions it was probably so painful for her to deal with me that it was like I, she couldn't let me fully back into her heart basically, because if I I was like, oh, I'm good, let me in. And she did. And then I blew up at her. She'd be like, trust destroyed.

Yeah, right, right. It's a genuinely fascinating story. It's— this is— I have not heard, uh, I've just, you know, a lot of times when you do podcasts and you talk to people, like, you kind of hear the same stories over and over again. This is a genuinely, uh, fresh perspective I have not come across before of someone who's just— who's made such a dramatic turnaround. We see dramatic turnarounds, but not in this specific way of going from kind of dark and angry and miserable to, uh, almost enlightened, I guess, and positive and happy. I assume I might be jumping to conclusions here. It's absolutely fascinating. So is all this, uh, prior to you traveling?

Uh, yeah, so I started meditating before we started traveling, and it was shortly after that that I got into like journaling. I made sure that, you know, diet, exercise was on point because I learned how effective that was in just keeping me feeling good. And probably like a year after that, we moved to Thailand. And that was hard, man. That like destroyed me again. So I'm just building up meditation, journaling, all this stuff to keep me feeling okay. And the problem was I hadn't actually done any of the deep work on myself to heal my wounds, to like go deep into like, why am I like this in the first place? Because I look at it like this. There's two, two stages, right? There's one learning the tools that I use as crutches. And the second stage is, why are you even like this in the first place? And it's from my learnings, from my readings, looking into trauma, reading, you know, Gabor Maté, reading, um, you know, John Gottman, all these things on parenting and trauma and wounding. A lot of it goes back to like our childhood. And that's weird for a lot of guys to understand, but like, that's why parenting is so important. Because you realize that, okay, yeah, I can stay calm here because I'm meditating, but why am I so angry in the first place? Oh, because, you know, my dad left my mom when I was 3, and then he, like, you know, did all this kind of stuff. And then my mom was sick for 10 years. Like, it starts making a lot of sense when you understand what happened in your life. And there's a whole body of science behind this with attachment theory and, and trauma and wounding and stuff like that. So I was building myself up with these crutches moving to Thailand, but I hadn't done any of that deeper work that I just mentioned. And so when we moved there, I was like super excited. But as soon as you land and you're like, dude, I don't even know where to get groceries. Like, how am I going to eat tomorrow with, you know, 2 kids in tow? That's freaky. That freaked me out so much. And I stopped doing all the stuff that was helping, stop meditating, stop going to the gym because I didn't even know where the gym was. Didn't really eat all that well. Sleep schedule was way off. And so I became a flipping monster again. Like, all of my stuff blew up. I was feeling so overwhelmed. I had to figure it all out on my own. We knew nobody in the country or within like 10,000 miles. And it's like, wow, now you're all alone, dude. How are you going to deal with this? And I dealt with it terribly. I was mean again. I was overwhelming again. I was like screaming at my kids to be quiet whenever they would yell. And I just found myself like broken down within the first month, lying on the floor like sobbing basically, because I was so screwed. I felt so bad and like I was never gonna get out of this. And in that moment, like, I really committed to changing because I was seeing like my kids were scared of me. That ain't cool, man. Like, that is the worst feeling. I had to get better. And it wasn't until I like really saw what my life was going to be like because my wife is like, I'm going to move back to Canada. Like, what are you doing, man? I'm going to take the kids and move back unless you sort this out. And that's when it became real. It's like, I got to figure this out. And so I sort of doubled down from that point, but I'll leave it there for now.

Man, I like this conversation.

I really enjoy it.

So tell me about, I guess, I mean, do you mind getting into some of the specifics of the life, I guess, your younger life, what some of those things were?

Totally.

That kind of led you to I guess to live that way. You keep describing yourself as a monster, and hey, I mean, you're not painting a pretty picture.

Um, no, no, it's not. Um, and you know what, a lot of guys had it way worse, and so I don't want to like make it up as though it's whatever. But yeah, go ahead.

And before, before we get into that, one more thing. Did, uh, did that tie into any substance abuse or addictions?

Uh, substance abuse, no. Addictions, probably phone. Like, that's as close as I've ever got, is I just like way overconsumed on phone.

Okay, so you weren't like— you weren't like in those anger moments of trying to cope with that emotion of, you know, drinking or drugs or anything like that?

No, just, just yelling and checking out, really numbing with that. Like, I would just go and check out for a couple days, just like crush my feelings, don't feel anything, don't talk to anyone, don't respond to anyone, kind of go into like this self-pity shame spiral. But Thankfully, no consumption of anything.

That's a pretty— that's a pretty normal reaction. Did you ever do any, um, like, uh, what do you call it, anger management or anything like that?

No, man. This is one of the weird things, is, uh, I really, really recommend like anger management therapy, coaching, whatever to guys, and there's a huge stigma around it still, which I think is ridiculous because it can really help to get professional help. And so I just want to make sure I drop that. I did not use therapy or anger management myself, but I've used coaching. I have joined men's groups. Like, I've done a lot of other group work.

Did you not do that because of the stigma or because you just didn't know about it?

I just didn't know. I had no idea. Yeah, nobody in my family did that. Nobody in my life talked about that. I was like, well, I guess this is just life. I'm just angry and I hate life, therefore, um, yeah, I guess I just have to deal with it.

Uh, so tell me about what life was like growing up. Um, you know, I guess your parents, what was life like? What was normal, I guess, to you?

Yeah. Yeah. So this is, um, I really encourage guys to like go into their stories like this. We run a couple of men's groups that talk about this kind of stuff. It's hard. It's vulnerable. It's awkward. But like, I like to say, and a coach told me this, I was like, I don't want to feel these feelings right now. Oh, that's so hard. And she's like, oh, don't hard men, don't strong men do hard things? I was like, man, yes they do. And so I guess I'm gonna have to face my fears and my feelings. So anyway, I'm just gonna preface with that because for anyone listening, like, this is such important work. And just because you feel things doesn't mean you're not a man, which I get a lot, guys going like, oh, I don't need to go there. But my, my story, again, not being as bad as some other people who are sort of physically abused or whatever, my perception of it— and this is important, the perception is all it takes for it to consider to be considered trauma. So when you scream at your kid, if they perceive that to be like neglect or abandonment or hatred or something, that's all it takes for that story to start percolating in the back of their mind and over the coming years to really develop into deep wounds. And so my initial wound, I would say, was my father left us when we— when I was 3, my sister was like 3 months old. And I just learned recently there was an affair involved. He moved out, he married some other woman, and obviously my mother didn't take that very well. And so here I am living with my mother, not seeing my dad regularly. And, you know, she's in a deep depression, obviously, as any person I think would be. But as this continued, she started getting sick. And so her depression and grief was manifesting in an eating disorder. And this was around probably my adolescent years, sort of like 9 to 15. I just you know, she was basically gone to me. And so I never really got a deep connection and was seeing my dad here and there throughout. Didn't really live with him all that much until she got really sick and I had to live with him. And so my perception— and again, this might not sound all that, you know, incredible— divorce, broken home, a lot of people have that. But my perception was, um, I'm being abandoned, I'm not good enough, my dad doesn't like me, what can I do to earn my dad's trust? And I was told by my grandfather recently that a question I asked him recent, right after my dad left, was, if I'm a good boy, will my dad come back? And so you can imagine that living in my head for 30 years and going like, wow, if I can just be perfect, maybe dad will come back. And that manifests as perfectionism. It manifests as, um, like wanting to be super hard and super well turned out and have no problems and have control over everything. And another thing that I experienced was when I had feelings about my dad having left, when I was sad as a young boy, and I remember like being 5, 6, whatever, going to his house on the weekends and being so mad, like, I don't want to go, he's, you know, left us, blah, blah, blah. When I had big feelings like that, my perception was my mother and the other family members around me couldn't handle it. And so I learned very young that emotions were not safe They weren't cool. The only thing that people responded to me with was like anger, overwhelm, and frustration. So that's all I learned to talk about and to react with. And one of the other things that's coming up is, if I'm going to go here all the way, I guess, is like I just learned that I had to hold everyone else's emotions for them because everyone around me seemed out of control. I perceived my mother to still be dealing with whatever trauma she was dealing with after my dad. And I'm, I'm like 5, 6, 7, so I'm not thinking about this.. But as I've gone back and looked at my life, I take on every burden, every responsibility. I don't know, like if you're, if you're dad listening, you've probably seen Encanto, Disney movie. My kids like sing that song, the Bruno song all the time. But there's a song in there by one of the older sisters who is like strong. She's the strong one. And she sings a song about like, you know, I don't know my worth if I can't hold everyone up, basically. And so that was me. I thought I was worthless if I didn't carry every family burden, every load, every emotion for someone else. And, um, it's now made it difficult to even make friends because I hold the burden of other people to care for me now. And so I don't let people in because if I'm not perfect, I believe, going all the way back to childhood, uh, I will be rejected. My dad won't love me, my friends won't love me, so I'll just take up no space, but I will hold space for everyone else with their emotions. So it became— it becomes very self-sacrificing in a sense. So very normal on the outside looking in, but, you know, broken home, mom sick, dad not present all that often. Just the classic thing that I think— I like to share this not because it's unique, but because it's so not unique. And if this is where my problems are coming from, which I am 100% certain they are based on the work I've done, I wonder if anyone listening can relate. Like, what is in your childhood? What is in your history that leads to today? Because you are simply a grown-up child. You're a man now, but you are a grown-up little boy, and there is still a part of you inside yourself that is that little boy, and he needs some help. He needs some healing. He needs to be seen. He needs to be heard. And that's deep work, man. That is deep inner child sort of work that's helped me along the way to heal. But I, uh, I won't go off on too many more tangents, but that was sort of the background of the story.

Uh, so your dad— so there was no custody arrangement there? It was just random show-ups, or did you have every other weekend or something like that?

I don't even know. I think it was like 2 days a week or like 2 days every other week. It was sort of on and off.

And he remarried, uh, correct? Multiple couple times.

Yeah.

Okay, so that's what the next question was going to be. So then, was there a stable family environment with Dad, or was it just as chaotic in that household that you only got to visit every once in a while?

You know, like, he was amazing. And this is so weird for me to say and to think. He was so good with us and so non-emotional. Like, he just— he would play hockey with me a lot, and I was like, oh, I love my dad because he plays with me a lot. Um, but there was nothing else. Didn't go out of his way to teach me things, didn't make me struggle, didn't make me do hard things, didn't tell me like that I— that he loved me all that often, or that like I was good enough, or anything like that. So I got that space with him, but every couple years it was a different woman, you know. Like, he remarried I think 4 times. So there's, there's just—

so he was almost a fun babysitter you had a connection with.

Exactly. That is a great way to put it. And it's sad When I think about that, I go like, oh damn, I don't know if I want that. But that is a— that was right on, dude. Thank you.

And, uh, uh, I assume you're the oldest?

Yeah.

Okay. Um, so I've heard that story before of from a broken home, didn't really have dad's approval. Um, and that all— it's usually the oldest son, uh, just works like a madman, sometimes ultra successful. And there's a, um, a big name, and I can't think of him, who really did well, but he kept thinking, man, if I just— they'd be wildly successful, and it was still never good enough. They would just think, well, maybe if I do this, then my dad will finally, you know— and it was kind of like this subconscious thing that, you know, they would never get. Um, I think it was Paul Allen. Um, I think he owned the Seattle Seahawks. I think that's what I'm thinking of. Because I remember them saying it was one of the sports franchises. I feel like it was Seattle, but he was like, he kept thinking that he did Microsoft, wildly successful, bought a basketball. He started accumulating sports teams because he thought his dad would finally think he's successful if he just— you know, the NBA team wasn't good enough, the soccer team wasn't good enough. An NFL team, that'll be good enough. Yeah, it's— yeah, it's really strange. I can't remember his whole story, but I think about that one.

That's how it felt. And I'm not wildly successful, but I'm successful enough because I drove myself to be so good at everything— sports, career, businesses, everything. And it was like the only things I didn't really think I could do anything about were family, like my marriage and my kids. And it turns out like, oh, actually, if you just put that kind of effort into those two things, life will be way better. So that's an interesting sort paradigm.

So, so we've never dug this deep into like childhood traumas and, and kind of recognize them. I've always addressed family history because it's nice to know where you come from, it's nice to know what cultures you come from and things like that. And more specifically, we always kind of have said, uh, you know, really analyze that relationship with your father, not from the standpoint that you just brought up, but more of, um, you know, recognize the things that, you know, maybe even a bad dad did well And those are things we'd want to replicate. Like, usually a human is not all bad or all good. There's usually both positive and negative traits and qualities. But, you know, look at the bad things they did, the things you don't want to replicate, and be very aware of that. And then look at the good things they did and be very aware of that and try and replicate those.

Totally.

Because I think a lot of what, a lot of what we hear is, hey, this is how I was raised and I turned out fine. And it's hard to— it's hard to maybe break those patterns sometimes. But recognizing it, that, you know, just because I was raised that way and I turned out fine doesn't mean it's a thing that we should replicate.

Yeah, exactly. And there's, there's a lot of work to be done here, man. And I'm glad you do ask about the father, because like, who could be more impactful in especially a man's life other than the father? Like, that's who we saw as being the example of a man. And he had— and, and we have as fathers now with our children like more influence than almost any other relationship in the entire world, probably like the most influential relationship of anyone. And in this, you're so right that there's a good and a bad. And I think that we can get to a place where we are grateful for each. And so we do in men's group, uh, something called a father share, where we tell our father's story, his biography, how we felt with him growing up, everything about him. And then we say, here's something I see in my father that I see in myself. And we can go deeper even after that, where sometimes I get guys to write a letter— don't send it, but if you think you can go there, write a letter to your dad. What do you want him to know? Where are you still angry at him? What do you see in him that you see in yourself? And then, can you imagine your dad as a little boy, a 2-year-old or a 5-year-old, who came into this world with none of the traits that he might have had as a father? And can you see him as just a little bit innocent? Can you just see him as being a little boy like you once were, like your son or daughter is today? And when you can get to that point, at least for me in my life, and this takes a lot of work because a lot of us have a lot of blame to our father still. I know that I had to go through anger toward my father before I could forgive him. But the point is we can forgive our fathers and then be grateful for both the good and the bad. And man, this is like epic heart heart exploding work in sort of the best sense of the word. It like relieved so much pressure for me, and it also allowed me to just like move into the present. I wasn't like, oh, I'm like this because my dad left my mom and he did this and he did this. It's like, look, every— I like myself today. I'm very happy with who I am today. I'm grateful for who I am today, and I could only become this man if my father screwed up in all the ways he screwed up. So it was a gift to me to have had him be a bad father in some instances. And like you said, I'm also super grateful for all the amazing things he did. And I'm under no illusions that he was some like perfect dude anymore. He was just a man who struggled just like I do. And I want sometimes for my children, my sons, more than anything, when I— when they're grown, if they came to me and they're like, Dad, I forgive you, man, that would like do my heart a lot of good because I screwed up so many times. And I want them to know that I I'm sorry for that, and I was doing my best. But if I heard, Dad, I forgive you, I think that would make my day. And so for me to say the same thing to my dad, who's now passed away, like, Dad, I forgive you, it relieves the pressure on my heart knowing that he's no longer in control. He's no longer taking up space in there other than simply gratitude and love. So this is like super deep work, obviously, um, but I think there's a lot to be done around our fathers, especially as fathers, because otherwise we just we just pass it on. And if you're passing things on based on inertia rather than intention, you're potentially passing on all of your dad's baggage to your kids. It's like, oof, why would you want to do that?

Spot on, 100%. Uh, 100%, you are. That's why it's the awareness of it that matters, the actually putting thought into it and recognizing that good and that bad. And, you know, uh, you know what it was like— I like that perspective of you know, think about them as a young child, uh, and, you know, maybe even getting deeper into how they grew up and the influences that were on them. Uh, I read somewhere once, I think it was biblical, I think it was something along the lines of, you know, whatever your father does wrong, uh, you're going to be punished for— I don't think the word was punished, but it's going to affect you for basically 7 generations. Is what it says. So you're going to pay the sins, you know, you're going to pay for the price of the sins of your whatever great amount of grandfathers. Uh, and I think the translation I had kind of read in that story was that's about how long it takes to get rid of, uh, to get rid of that kind of stupidity in your life when they do something, because it's just an inherited thing of that's what you know, and so you replicate it, you know. I think a lot of us, uh, that have grown up from being a kid not liking something our father did or our mother did, and then we become a father and we find ourselves saying and doing those exact same things despite of how we felt. Um, and some people just continue that on like you said, um, and not a— it's not that they're not aware of it, I guess they just don't have the awareness to step up and really give it some analytical thought and say I shouldn't, like, I'm gonna have to be pretty proactive and make a decision to try and not do this. Um, and maybe even talk to the family about this to hold me accountable for when I do just inherently go back to that way.

Absolutely. The communication piece is huge there. And I look at this like, um, I've heard this as well, like the 7 generations. When you heal yourself, you're healing 7 generations up and down your family tree. And I see this as, uh, intergenerational trauma. You know, so your dad was the way he was because his dad was the way he was and his dad was the way he was because, you know, on and on and on and on because fatherhood matters. Like we have an outsized impact on our kids and our dad must have had an outsized impact on us. And so can you be so intentional that you are the one who breaks the chain of intergenerational trauma? That takes doing just what you said, which is like, wow, I actually have a choice. There's hope. I don't have to live this life. I can choose how I live. Yes, like there's always hope, man. Um, and so, yeah, and if you need to communicate with that, if you need to set accountabilities, do it because it's worth it. There could be nothing more important as a man and a father than getting this right, because if you don't, guess what? Your sons and your daughters get to take your 7 generations. And why can you imagine placing a weight of 7 generations on your child's back and watching them crumble under that? How could you do that? So as a man, I think It is one of your greatest— especially as a father— your greatest needs. The thing that you can do most for your children is to be the one who steps up, looks deep inside you, and starts healing everything that hurts. And it is hard, and we don't like to go there. We like to drink, we like to smoke, we like to say, oh, I'm fine. No, you're not. Unless you're like actually chill inside and you're really loving your wife and you love your kids and you're feeling content and you're not looking for more in your career because, you know, you're driven by money. Unless all those things are true, then no, you're hurting, dude. And we all do. Like, we all grew up without a perfect father, therefore you must have at least a little bit of a father wound, if you want to call it that. So, man, I think this is the most important thing we can do as fathers.

That was well said. It really is. It's really kind of fascinating how impactful that father role is. Like, when you, when you really kind of stretch out and look at a wide girth and see all the studies on how impactful they are, how much damage they can cause, how much good they can cause. It's weird that just— it's almost just their presence. It almost doesn't make sense. It's almost like you read these studies and you're like, man, they have to be like making this stuff up just to make dads feel good or something like that. But it's not. I mean, it's just— I mean, you look at— you go to any prison and what's going to be the common factor between all of them? No dad in the home. Uh, now you go to the poor neighborhoods, the, the places where they're struggling, the higher STD rates, the lower education rates. I mean, every measurable statistics that's done on a census, uh, you know, they go in a positive direction when there's dad in the home, they go in a negative direction when there's not a dad in the home. It's, it's crazy bizarre how impactful that position is, man.

I, I think this is sort of my purpose with all of this beyond just like wanting to share, because I, I was hopeless. Like there was a time where I was so dark that I thought the only answer was like not living anymore. And I want to help men understand that there is always hope. But because I'm doing this now, I was like, hey, what's the bigger purpose here? What's the deeper purpose? I think we could save the world and take that however you want, but I don't really love the direction of a lot of things that are happening right now. And I think We can save the world by saving fathers. One dad at a time influences his family, his children.

I'm going to see if I wrote this. I'm going to see if you read this. I'm pulling up my site right now to see if it's on the blog. So I wrote this, uh, about a year ago. I'm not sure if I've released it yet because I've been wanting to get on a stage and record it. It's a great speech.

Nice.

It was something, I forget what the exact title was, but something along the lines of, it's like, you know, How to Make the World a Better Place, I think, is what we called it. And it's exactly, exactly what you're talking about.

You start with the dad, you heal his heart, you— the healed dad, the grounded dad, make sure that he doesn't pass on the crap to his kids. His kids have kids who don't have any of that generational trauma, and suddenly 2, 3 generations from now, man, we live in a world of, uh, a lot more peace, a lot more empathy, a lot more harmony, and, uh, hopefully a lot more hard work and dedication and things that are important, unlike a lot of what we see today. So that's my, that's my mission, man, just saving the world one dad at a time.

Yeah. And I mean, you say save the world, um, like I said, I wrote on that because it becomes very real of like, we can alleviate the prison systems by fixing fatherhood.

100%.

We can alleviate, we can alleviate the burden on the welfare system and reduce taxes by fixing fatherhood. We can dramatically reduce teenage pregnancies and STDs by improving fatherhood. We can significantly reduce poverty by helping—

it's—

we can improve education rates. But just think, there's so much in a community and as a culture and as a country, plus maybe your country too, that can be dramatically improved. And it's It all ties down to this one thing. And it is a, it is a wonderful thesis. I'm glad you're the first person I've ever heard besides me say that. So I'm glad. I thought I was looking. I'm like, did I just— did that just get released recently? Because I plan that stuff out in advance and it slowly gets trickled out.

That's amazing.

No, I'm so pumped to hear that you read it. Yes.

No, I'm pumped, man. That's— and you know what? It even goes into like geopolitics. You know, these, these people who go in to become leaders,— and I use leaders in the loosest sense of the word, only political leaders, because I don't think anybody's really a good leader these days in politics. But when you become that leader and you are an unhealed man who has a lot of that immature little boy pain, where do you go for your answer? And in Robert— not Robert, John Eldredge's book Wild at Heart, he talks about little boys have a question they need answered inside of them. That question is basically, Do I have what it takes? Am I good enough? And that's typically answered by a father. And so you've got these people in politics typically who are looking for that answer by taking power, by doing whatever they want, by being more and more power grabby, by starting wars and doing all of this to try to fill that hole in their hearts. And it's not an expression of mature masculinity. The so-called patriarchy and toxic masculinity that people are talking about, it's not true. Embodied, mature masculine. It's like hurt little boys masquerading as men who haven't done this deep work and they're still looking for daddy's approval. And it's not always that, but it's very often that. And I think, you know, we save the world locally, one family at a time. But like you said, those in the prison system, the welfare system, the whole economic system, taxation, the country, the globe, healthcare, because then you don't have a bunch of like I don't know, hurt little boys masquerading as presidents who are like, "Oh, I'm going to start a war because I need to answer this pain in my heart." Like, dude, the whole world will change. And I don't think it's hyperbole. So I'm super pumped to hear that you're on board with that.

Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. So I'm actually scheduled to record that here in about a week. Oh, let's go back to forgiveness. So forgiveness is a, it's a popular topic to discuss. It's an insanely difficult thing to actually implement. Uh, even what I found in my own life, it's easy to say it, it's more difficult to actually mean it. And if— because I think if there was just, uh, I've said this to someone once, if there was a switch you could just flip that said, hey, uh, where's my hand, forgiveness, done, I would make that choice because obviously it makes sense, it's a good thing, it would be good for everyone, especially me. Um, it's just I can make that conscious decision, but then it's like when it comes to the practicality of it, I still want pain for that person. So that's not really forgiveness. Um, and so I've done better with it now that I'm older. In the last like 4 or 5 years, I can genuinely be like, no big deal. And I'm not sure if that's just a station of my life or maybe a sign of maturity, but I like— if someone came to me, how do you forgive? I'm Bubba, I don't know. Like, I can tell you, I can tell you why it's important. I can tell you that, you know, what it kind of means. Like, it, you know, if you say it and you mean it, but you still want harm to come to that person, and you still want to, you know, you still want justice, maybe, um, then maybe it probably doesn't mean that you've actually done it.

So yeah, this is something that, like, I didn't even know what it meant to forgive, because I even, I asked my grandfather about this. He's sort of like a mentor. We meet up every couple couple weeks. I was like, what do you mean forgive?

Like, hey, pause that real quick. So this grandfather, this is your mom's or your dad's dad?

Mom's dad.

Okay, just curious.

Yeah, no, we, uh, it's amazing, man. It's— I'm so grateful and fortunate to have an elder in my life who gets it. And we can talk about this kind of stuff. We can talk about his struggles. We talk about my struggles. He, you know, leads men's groups in church. I lead men's groups, um, of my own. And so like, we, we talk about all this stuff. But I asked him one day, I was like, what does it even mean to forgive? And like, I was so out, I so couldn't understand that I can't even tell you what he said, just like right over my head. And as I've been doing this work with my own father and forgiving him, I think I wrote this recently, I can't remember if it was on Instagram or whatever, but it's like forgiveness seems weak because you give up the power to want to hurt the other person. Right? Like you just, yeah, if you just forgive then like, oh man, then they get off scot-free. But no, forgiveness is actually about you. It's not about them, because when you do not forgive, the pain of whatever happened lives in your head, your heart, wherever. And if you can forgive, it's actually about you, because you remove them from having the power over your life that requires you to want them pain. And so part of this for me is having to go through and not around the emotions that they brought up in you. And what do I mean by that? So if someone wrongs you, it can be easy for men especially to just get angry and express it poorly, destructively in my case. What we can do instead is speak or journal, tell another man that you can trust, hey, when this happened, I felt disrespected, I felt hurt, I felt sad. Get good at what these emotions are and then feel them. Because it's one thing to be like, oh yeah, I'm angry about that. But when was the last time you sat with anger and just let it be in your body without reacting? Can you sit with that? That's hard. That takes mindfulness. That takes awareness. That takes meditative practice. But when we sit with emotion and let it go through us rather than try to bury it down or sidestep it, I feel as though a lot of the energy for causing the other person pain dissipates because it's not about them. It's about you not wanting to hurt. And you were hurt. That's just so—

I totally get what you're saying, because especially with guys, they really tend to, um, they'll have the arguments in their head and they'll be arguing both their point and the other person's point, like saying the perfect things and setting up the perfect comebacks. And, and, you know, it— I've talked to a lot of guys, they're like, it's amazing how much time of my day I've lost having this argument that never existed, and it just went down this rabbit hole. That would never really happen in real life. You said, and that's where you went over my head, you were saying sit with that anger and you were explaining it very well, and that still went over my head. Like, I'm not even sure what it means to sit with anger, um, and to feel anger. Like, I understand feeling it, but I don't understand sitting and feeling with it. So do you want to maybe elaborate on that in a— maybe say it at a 4-year-old level so good old Townsend Russell Russell over here can understand it?

Yeah, man. And a lot of this, I'm just— this is the work that I do all day. This is the work that I talk about all day. But it starts with noticing. Like, fundamentally, what I look for is how deeply can you notice what's happening inside and externally? Like, how can you feel your feet on the floor right now? Can you feel if your shoulders are up near your ears? Can you feel your heartbeat? Like, how close can you feel things? And this is developed, in my experience at least, through meditation, through breathing intentionally, through things like sports and yoga and working out, building the sort of mind-body connection, if you will. But it goes into how deep can you feel. And from being aware, we can become self-aware, which means we know what's going on inside. We're not going to be surprised when anger comes up. It's like, oh, I get it. I know why I'm angry. Now I can deal with it. And that's the problem, is typically we don't. We just go, oh, anger. Okay, now it's gone. What do I do? And so when we sit with awareness to self-awareness, we can finally start to be authentic because you can't show up as who you truly are unless you actually know what that is. And you got to be able to feel deeply. And so when I say feeling into it, I mean literally, intentionally, maybe closing your eyes. And this is where I lose some guys, like meditate. Oh, I don't want to meditate, like that's for like Buddhist monks. Like, no, it's not actually. It's just a basic ability to practice awareness. Because everything will change when you start noticing things better. And so you can sit, you can feel the anger, notice where it is in your body. Is it in your chest? What kind of— what does it feel like? Does it feel red? Does it feel heavy? Does it feel like fire? Is it going up and down the column of your chest? And just like get really curious about the physical sensation and then start to notice where your mind is going. What would this anger have to say if it could say something? What does it want me to know? What can I learn from this anger? Because emotions are simply like gauges on a car. They're not good, they're not bad. They're telling you something's wrong or something's off. And so as you practice meditating, a lot of guys simply breathe. Take 5 deep breaths into your belly, slow them right down. That's a good start for meditation if you think it's too woo-woo for you. Hey, I've done a lot more woo-woo stuff than that that's worked for me, but let's just start there. If you just breathe deeply into your belly while you feel whatever you're feeling, you can start to dissipate the power it has over you. You can name it to tame it, as they say. So, oh, I'm feeling angry in my gut right now. Okay, that sort of lessens it. You got to feel it before you can heal it is another one of those, like, you know, rhyming clichés. But I mean, feeling it deeply. Yeah, right. So sitting with it simply means feeling it as deeply as you can and then developing your ability to notice deeper and deeper where it's living, where it's coming from, where in the body it is, and what it wants to tell you.

And then what do you do with that? Once you have that recognition and you can assign it a color, a feeling, recognize where it is.

Typically, if it's anger, expressing it is very important in a non-destructive way. So simply saying, I'm angry.

Oh, well, you just took all the fun out of it.

Well, you can, yeah, I don't want to, don't go hurt anyone. Uh, one of the things that we do in group, which, uh, you know, you, you want to be scared away from joining a men's group, here's something that I sometimes recommend is a cathartic release, which is you find a pillow or you go into your car and you scream. You, you figure out where that anger is and you get it out, because anger is an emotion that wants to get out. And so you scream into a pillow or you punch a pillow, something that gets the anger to come out. But it's not about repressing and it's not about hurting anyone. It's a matter of, or even just saying, I feel angry. When was the last time you had an emotion instead of being like, oh, I'm so grumpy, or like, ah, you're just feeling whatever, you're like, oh, I'm angry right now. That really hurt. I hate when someone does that. Oh man, I'm angry. It's like, oh, okay, I can deal with it now. Rather than just this like red flashing light that flicks off in your head and you get totally overwhelmed, just like say it, say what you're feeling, share with the people around you. I do that with my kids even. Hey, I'm feeling really frustrated that you're not listening to me right now. I'm going to need you to do this, or here's a consequence. But I start with, here's how it makes me feel, because that's never wrong. And by saying it, I honor it, and then I can go past it. I can drop it rather than it being like this thing taking up energy inside of me. So there's a whole bunch of different ways to go about this. Um, it's taken me a long time of trying and failing to do this, and, um, I know it's a little bit like esoteric, so I'm— I apologize if it's not sort of easily coming across, but it can be basic. You just need to practice.

It's— I mean, it really comes down to, you know, if we're simplifying this to a few words, controlling your emotions.

Yeah, without repressing.

Oh, that's good.

A lot of us like to control emotions by not feeling them. But here's my analogy, right? You have, you have a big feeling come out. What it needs to do is move. You need to digest that feeling, feel it fully, and then let it go. But what we do as men typically— imagine you're eating a hamburger. The hamburger is the anger or the negative emotion, goes into your belly. But uh-oh, you don't have a digestive system. So what does a hamburger do? It sits there, it rots, it's uncomfortable. You're like, oh, my belly hurts, I don't know what's going on. And you're like, I'm a man, I'm just gonna take it. So you hurt and you're just like, you know, forget about it after a while. Now imagine you're playing football and, uh, you know, in this case someone tackles you. Well, imagine in real life the tackle is like a trigger that your kids do. So your kid like screams in your face and suddenly this hamburger that's undigested, this tackle, this trigger, hits you in the gut or wherever this anger is living in the analogy. What are you gonna do? You've got this revolting, festering emotion or hamburger that's not been digested, it's rotted. You get hit in the gut, what's gonna happen? It's going to explode everywhere. You're going to crap it all out over everyone else, or it's going to come out the other end and it's just going to be miserable. This is what happens when we repress emotions. We take it inside, we stuff it down, we don't move it. It sits there and it just starts circulating, and all the worst parts of it get stuck in the body. And so when our kids trigger us, for example, for me, it's when my kids are screaming, when I get hit, when my kids are fighting. These are things that trigger me very easily. That anger that's been living in my gut unexpressed comes up and I scream at them. And so that's why it's so important to control the outburst of your emotion, but work through the actual emotion itself. So not being a slave to your emotions, obviously, but also not repressing them because the repressed emotion gets stuck and it will always come back out. So I wonder, I wonder if there's an addition to that because controlling is the right word in many senses, but not ignoring, controlling but not ignoring, perhaps.

That makes sense, being able to process through it. And, um, yeah, I'm not sure a better way to say that. So this— so you're using the word big feelings, which I just heard a friend say the other day, and she's very natural healing, holistic, clean foods, you know, that lifestyle, uh, very peace and calm. Is that a, is that like a new, the new it word, or is that like a book or a thesis being put out there somewhere? But there's just a second, I've never heard the word big feelings before, and now I've heard it twice from two different people in, uh, in about a week.

Well, I take it to just mean anything that's overwhelming, especially for kids, because look, our kids learn how to deal with their emotions from us. We regulate their nervous system by how regulated our nervous system is. And so our children don't come out knowing how to deal with disappointment, right? So if they can't play with whatever toy and you got to leave, and you know, you know, you can't watch that extra episode, they don't have the skills that we are supposed to have as adults to be like, okay, take a breath. I'm disappointed. This feels really bad. I really wanted to watch that show, but I understand it's bedtime. You know, like, they can't do that. They're just like What do you mean I can't watch that show? And they'll just typically blow up if that's how your child is, sort of expresses his emotions. And so for me, I think of just big feelings as a catch-all phrase for overwhelming feelings that our children haven't yet developed the nervous system to deal with. And that just is on us. So anger, often overwhelm, disappointment, frustration, sadness, grief, basically anything, almost any feeling as a kid. Just imagine that every feeling your kid has is big and overwhelming and help them through that. So your kids— this is important for a lot of guys to realize— your kids aren't giving you a hard time, they're having a hard time. Your kid's not out there to like get you, right? They're just like, Dad, I don't know what to do with my disappointment. I'm so disappointed. And then they scream and they hit and they cry. Your job is to be like, oh, okay, I see you're disappointed right now. Okay, I'm here. And chill. And let them chill with you.

And I'm, I'm very much in the mindset of, um, we don't eliminate those things that are causing them to have those emotions, those feelings. That issue. You know, what example do you use? Turn off the TV or something like that and it bugged them? Like, they need to know disappointment. They need to know the word no. They need to know they just can't have everything. It's not that, hey, we start screaming and overreacting, oh, turn that TV back on, you know, or give them whatever they're asking for. You know, they do need to experience these things and know how the world works. But then to help them, I guess, through that process. Because day one is not probably the time to have a big reaction and you have another big reaction back to them to teach them a lesson not to have big reactions. And what better way than to have a big reaction?

Exactly. Yeah. We teach our children like, oh, why are you screaming? Well, how do you react when they scream? You try and be scarier and bigger because you're the dad. They got to learn. Like, no, you're just teaching them this is how you react when you're angry because you, dad, can't figure out to how to like calm your own nervous system because you're overwhelmed. Why do we yell at our kids? Because we're overwhelmed. Like, yeah, if you can just be chill by sitting with what is real for you and expressing your emotions and learning how they feel in your body, then like you won't need to yell at them because you'll be like, oh yeah, I see how hard this is. You don't want the TV to go off, and you know what, that sucks, and we're still going to turn it off.

But Kurt, whoever's louder wins.

That's what I used to do. Yeah, of course. I was great at that. Didn't really work for my kids being kind, loving, and feeling safe though.

So yeah, I'm allowed to get attention, like, but it's more like when everyone's like— I mean, I have 3, I have 3 boys as well, so, and they're a little bit closer in age, so they're always playing, wrestling, and sometimes just dagum loud, and they don't hear a common request. Now, there are times I walk in there, most of the time when they're wrestling, I'm going to join them. And I'll just, you know, King of the Hill, and everyone's pinned. Hey, time to brush some teeth. Yeah, you've all lost now. Dad wins. Totally. But there's that. I mean, there's definitely times, I mean, you know, I use the power of the dad voice to capture attention.

Of course.

But yeah, not so much to— mostly because I don't know if it's just my age or maturity now, because I would yell more. Not the way you're describing, the way you were. Um, but man, I just don't want to. Like, it just, it doesn't— like, to have a continued yelling conversation, just like, I'm good for about a one-liner and then I just, I, I don't— my lungs and throat don't want to do that anymore. I don't know how to explain it, but all right, so this has been a really interesting discussion. I had no idea we were going to get into, uh anger management and family history and stuff. That was, that was a really fun conversation, uh, one I haven't delved deep into before, so I appreciate that.

Yeah, thanks for showing up, for doing this. I didn't know where it was going to go either, and it's like, okay, thanks for just going deeper and deeper, man.

Uh, tats— what kind of tats you got there? I see a couple on the hands.

I do. I got one on this side that says "Wake up," just to remind me to be present. Like I said before, I want to remind myself to be aware of as much as I can. I have one which I will be getting changed. I used to be really big into Ayn Rand, uh, Atlas Shrugged, all that kind of stuff.

Okay.

Um, I, I still do love— huge fan of capitalism and the free market. I like so hardcore into that and just freedom in general. So I've got a dollar sign on my wrist, which is in her book Atlas Shrugged, the producers, the merchants, the sort of free men used the dollar sign as their calling card to identify one another, like, oh hey, we're friends, we're using the dollar sign. Got that on there, sort of same sort of thing. Other hand is for my father. He had a heart tattoo over his chest, had my name and my sister's name in it. I got one that was a heart very similar to his, but there's a skull on the other half of it to remind me of my own mortality, because he died of a massive heart attack when he was 50. Out of the blue, no warning signs. And so I wanted to both remember him and honor him, but also be like, I could die at any time. Let's live for today. So there's a couple of— there's MM on there for Memento Mori, remember you will die. And it's not, you know, morbid or anything. It's just like, oh yeah, something can happen. I might as well be present for my kids, my wife, and my life rather than like be stuck on my phone or something. So it just helps keep me real.

Yeah, death can be sad, but it can also be a reminder to, uh, you know, hug your loved ones and enjoy your life and while you're here, um, and appreciate what you got. Any closing remarks you want to add in?

Oh man, I think the only thing is that all of my work is just realizing that if you want to be a better dad, like if you're listening to shows like this to become a better dad, you got to start by being a better man. And that typically means doing some work on yourself to grow and heal whatever was hurting you before, whatever inefficiencies you have right now. Do the work on you. Even though you might think it's selfish, it is not selfish, it is selfless. If you show up as a better husband and a better father just because you took an hour out of your day to meditate, go to the gym, join a men's group, talk to a friend, like, that's going to be so much more beneficial to your family than if you were there but like angry or checked out. So becoming a better dad, I say, just starts with becoming a better man. And just, you know, think about that. What does that mean in your life?

I like that. Work on the internal. A lot of dads will work on the external, you know. You'll read the self-help books on how to make more money, improve your business, you know, manage your personal finances, uh, but not a lot of fixing the inside and some root causes.

Yeah, well said.

The why is important.

Yeah.

All right, Kurt, I appreciate it. Thank you for coming on, and, uh, look forward to talking to you sometime in the future.

100%, man. Thank you, appreciate this.

Absolutely. This is 100 Dad. Find our current tour schedule on 100dad.com, 100dad.com, on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and more at 100 Dad, 100 AD, email Townsend Russell at 100dad.com.